Prosecutors oppose moving Anthony Bennett trial

Anthony Bennett is pictured in an undated file photo. Bennett has been charged with abusing Carnel Chamberlain, whose burned body was found at the home Bennett shared with the boy and Carnel’s mother at 7340 E. Tomah Road.

Federal prosecutors say there’s no need to move the trial of the man accused of killing a 4-year-old Mt. Pleasant boy in 2012.

The attorney for Anthony Michael Bennett argued in court documents that there’s been too much negative publicity about the case. Bennett, 21, is charged with killing Carnel Chamberlain, whose burned remains were found buried last summer outside the boy’s home on Tomah Road on the Isabella Reservation.

Lawyer John Shea of Ann Arbor says Bennett is unlikely to get a fair jury in Bay City federal court because the public could be “poisoned” against him. Shea asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington to move the case to Detroit.

But assistant U.S. attorneys Craig Wininger and Roy Kranz say careful jury selection would compensate for any possible effect of pretrial news coverage.

Advertisement

“This court can take measures to uncover bias and prejudice from potential jurors during the (selection) process, including questionnaires and individual sidebar questioning,” the prosecutors wrote in a legal brief. “These safeguards are sufficient to expose juror predispositions and biases.”

The prosecutors said if an impartial jury couldn’t be found after jury selection begins, then the case should be moved entirely out of the Eastern District of Michigan. That region stretches from the Straits of Mackinac to the Ohio border down the eastern side of the Lower Peninsula.

Winginger and Kranz pointed to the case of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. Skilling was convicted of numerous felonies related to the collapse of the Houston-based energy company, and was tried and convicted in Houston.

The prosecutors said that all nine Supreme Court justices agreed that “despite what was described as a ‘barrage of local media coverage (which) was massive in volume and often caustic in tone,’ and crimes which resulted in the losses of thousands of jobs in Houston and the disappearance of retirement accounts for thousands more, the district court was correct not to presume prejudice against Skilling.” The trial was not moved.

Bennett’s trial is scheduled for January. It’s not known when Ludington will rule on the request to move it.

Bennett is facing a first-degree murder charge in the June 21, 2012, slaying, but is not facing the federal death penalty. At the time, Bennett was living with Carnel and the boy’s mother.

Bennett also is charged with assault of a child resulting in substantial bodily injury, assault of a child, assault with a dangerous weapon, animal cruelty and two counts of witness tampering. He remains in federal custody.

Meanwhile, Carnel’s death certificate was updated recently to indicate the cause of death was homicide. Previously, the official cause of death was listed as “pending.”

The updated death certificate does not specify how Carnel died.

Bennett’s trial has been delayed repeatedly. It had previously been set for September, November and April, and was delayed again to give Shea more time to get ready. According to court documents, the prosecution provided Shea with more than 1,600 pages of documents, along with more than 20 discs of audio or video material.

Shea was appointed as Bennett’s attorney after Bennett’s previous attorney, Anthony Chambers of Detroit, was suspended by the state’s Attorney Discipline Board for ethical violations in other cases.

The Morning Sun’s Susan Field contributed to this report.Mark Ranzenberger is online editor of TheMorningSun.com. Follow him on Twitter @ranzenberger.